Eduardo Shimahara
Biography:
Brazilian, born 44 years ago in Sao Paulo, shima has lived many different lives.
Mechanical engineer for ten years leading teams in France, Spain and Brazil, left his career to start a small business in consultancy. Twelve years later this business became the 6th largest group of private universities in brazil.
Mixing education with business was a though challenge that raised many questions around what kind of education we are offering as a main stream?
This conflict leads him to left this business, selling everything and starting the educ-acao.com project, travelling the world with other 3 Brazilians visiting “innovative schools” like yip, green school, team academy and many others. Their journey is told in a book with participations of Fritjof Capra, Howard Gardener, José Pacheco, Lia Diskin, Dale Stephens (uncollege) and others. The book is distributed for free and have had more than 15,000 downloads in Brazil.
This is how he found the Sustainability Institute.
In 2013 moves to South Africa with his family where he finds a second home.
In Cape Town while doing his Masters he finds another passion: Our connection to food as a way of rescuing our connection to Nature. During his Masters at Stellenbosch University he uses innovative methods as Participatory Action Research (PAR) adding gamification as a way of inviting a whole ecovillage to reflect and act about their choices concerning food.
He is now busy co-creating a platform – The South Collective – that is putting light into amazing people on the Southern Hemisphere and making crazy plans to try to save part of the Amazonian jungle.
He is a micro urban farmer that is passionate about sustainable development, education, food and people. also loves to play djembe, didgeridoo, to dive, to hike and to be among people that follow their dreams.
He has a postgraduate diploma in Cooperative Games (centro universitário Monte serrat – santos/brazil) and another in Sustainable Development (university of stellenbosch – stellenbosch/south africa) and holds a 3rd degree Black Belt in Aikido.
Lives in cape town – the mother city – with his wife, marine biologist tatiana, amazing young daughter zoe , young newborn Elliot and crazy street dogs – Maya and Leelo.